Various medical procedures require that one or more medical fluids be injected into a patient. For example, medical imaging procedures oftentimes involve the injection of contrast media into a patient, possibly along with saline and/or other fluids. Power injectors may be used for these types of injections.
A power injector generally includes what is commonly referred to as a powerhead. One or more syringes may be mounted to the powerhead in various manners (e.g., detachably; rear-loading; front-loading; side-loading). Each syringe typically includes what may be characterized as a syringe plunger, piston, or the like. Each such syringe plunger is designed to interface with (e.g., contact and/or temporarily interconnect with) an appropriate syringe plunger driver that is incorporated into the powerhead, such that operation of the syringe plunger driver axially advances the associated syringe plunger inside and relative to a barrel of the syringe. One typical syringe plunger driver is in the form of a ram that is mounted on a threaded lead or drive screw. Rotation of the drive screw in one rotational direction advances the associated ram in one axial direction, while rotation of the drive screw in the opposite rotational direction advances the associated ram in the opposite axial direction.
Patient safety is of course of paramount concern when injecting contrast media into a patient. One such safety concern is whether a patient's organs can reasonably tolerate the proposed volume and/or concentration of contrast media (e.g., amount and/or concentration of iodine in at least certain computed tomography contrast medias) to be injected. In this regard, a patient's kidney(s) should be functioning at a level so as to clear the contrast media from the patient's bloodstream within a certain amount of time to avoid undesirable health risks (e.g., damaging the patient's kidney(s) and/or other organs). For example, injections of certain concentrations and volumes of contrast media may adversely impact the health of some patients due to their compromised kidney function.